New Senior Fellows Welcomed to the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government

In This Section

You are here

CAMBRIDGE, MA – Among the senior fellows being welcomed as of July 1 to the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government (M-RCBG) at Harvard Kennedy School are a technology entrepreneur, a former deputy governor of the Bank of France, a medical doctor with a background in global health communications, and a public health expert on driving health outcomes through mass behavioural changes.

“Senior fellows are a vital resource to our center. They bring valuable experience as practitioners, and their strong academic orientation enables them to provide significant insights. Their work here enriches our understanding of the business-government relationship,” said Richard Zeckhauser, Frank Plumpton Ramsey Professor of Political Economy and chair of M-RCBG’s fellows selection committee. “We welcome these new colleagues, and look forward to their effective interaction with our faculty, our students, and others engaged with the work of the center,” said John Haigh, M-RCBG Co-Director and Lecturer in Public Policy at HKS.

The Senior Fellows Program is designed to strengthen the connection between theory and practice as the center examines and develops policies at the intersection of business and government. Every senior fellow is sponsored by a Harvard faculty member. During their time at M-RCBG, they undertake a substantial research project and offer a study group for students.

Incoming fellows:

Steve Johnson has been a technologist, entrepreneur, private investor, and philanthropist for thirty years, professionally specializing in building innovative technologies into successful enterprises, with a personal and philanthropic focus on education, climate change awareness, the arts, and gay rights equality. Steve was born and raised in Los Angeles, earning a Bachelor of Arts in economics from University of Southern California in 1980 and an MPP from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School in 1985. He left a Ph.D. program at Harvard in 1990 to start a technology company based upon his invention of a digital means of transmitting sound and images over telephone lines (now known as ‘streaming media’), which was integrated into America Online in 1993 and enabled the first availability of images, sound and video in an online service, a precursor to the Web in 1995. He has been a technology investor and entrepreneur (and avid marathoner and mountaineer) in the Boston area since 1999, founding companies in ad technology, Web personalization, and medical IT. Steve served as chairman of the board of trustees of Harvard’s American Repertory Theater from 2013-17, a theater committed to broadening the impact of theater on community, ideas, and understanding. Since 2005, Steve has been spearheading efforts in New South Wales, Australia to honor and seek justice for hundreds of victims of gay hate crimes that ravaged the Australian gay community in the 1980s and 1990s, and took the lives of dozens of men, including Steve’s younger brother, Scott, in Sydney in 1988. This effort helped presage a national plebiscite for gay marriage legalization, which was finally passed in December 2017. Long committed to education and the arts, the Johnson family helped found the first (and still only) non-denominational independent high school in Orange County, California, Sage Hill High School, which opened in 2000 in Newport Beach, CA. As a Senior Fellow, his research is entitled The First Amendment and the Internet: Choice, Transparency, and Reach, How A.I. Can Advance and Protect Free Speech. His faculty sponsor is Nicco Mele, Director, Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy.

Jean-Pierre Landau is an Associate Professor of Economics at SciencesPo - Paris and a former senior official at the French Treasury and Central Bank. He has served as Deputy Governor of the Banque de France, Executive Director for France at the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (Washington, DC) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (London). He was also Undersecretary at the Minister of Finance in Paris. In his different capacities, he was a member of the Board of the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) in Basel, a G7 and G20 Deputy and a member of the Financial Stability Board (FSB) and its Steering Committee. He was Visiting Professor at SAIS (John Hopkins University) and Lecturer at the Woodrow Wilson School (Princeton University). He co-authored "The Euro and the Battle of Ideas" with Markus Brunnermeier and Harold James published at Princeton University Press in 2016. His main fields of interest include money and international economics, areas where he has direct and extensive experience. As a Senior Fellow, he will be conducting research on "The future of money in a digital world". His faculty sponsor is Jeffrey Frankel, James W. Harpel Professor of Capital Formation and Growth at Harvard University's Kennedy School.

Scott C. Ratzan has three decades of pioneering accomplishments in the U.S. and globally in health communication, health literacy and strategic diplomacy. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Health Communication: International Perspectives, established in 1995. Over the last five years at Anheuser-Busch InBev, he was the architect of a ground-breaking approach to help reduce harmful drinking. Termed the “Global Smart Drinking Goals,” the program is a ten-year, $1 billion multi-sectoral initiative, which included the creation of a Foundation with an independently led Board of which Dr. Ratzan was founding President. Prior to joining ABInBev, Dr. Ratzan was Vice President of Global Health at Johnson & Johnson for eleven years including time in Brussels as VP Government Affairs. Before his private sector engagement, he worked at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in Washington DC, designing the framework for the Bureau of Global Health communication efforts. He launched his career in Boston spending a decade in academia as a professor and Founding Director of the Emerson-Tufts Masters Program in Health Communication. In addition to a number of publications in the health field, he is the co-author of the definition of health literacy adopted by the US Government and incorporated in the Affordable Care Act. Recently, he has served as Co-Chair of the UN Secretary General’s Every Woman Every Child Innovation Working Group, as Vice Chair of the Business Industry Advisory Council's Health Committee to the OECD, on the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Well-Being and Mental Health, and on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Board of Scientific Counselors, Office of Infectious Disease. Dr. Ratzan has an M.D. from the University of Southern California, an M.P.A. from the Harvard Kennedy School, and an M.A. in Communication from Emerson College. His academic appointments include Adjunct Professor at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Tufts University School of Medicine, and George Washington University School of Public Health. As Senior Fellow, his research project is titled “Advancing health sustainably: ‘Inspiring Smart Choices’ to achieve societal well-being.” His faculty sponsor is Joseph Newhouse, John D. MacArthur Professor of Health Policy and Management at Harvard Kennedy School.

Paul Sheard was most recently Vice Chairman of S&P Global, after serving as Executive Vice President and Chief Economist and earlier Executive Managing Director and Chief Economist of Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services. Previously, he held chief economist positions at Nomura Securities and at Lehman Brothers and was Head of Japan Equity Investments at Baring Asset Management. Earlier, Sheard was Lecturer in Economics at the Australian National University (ANU) and Osaka Gas International Cooperation Associate Professor of Economics at Osaka University, and was Visiting Scholar and Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics at Stanford University and Foreign Visiting Scholar at the Bank of Japan. Sheard is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the New Economic Agenda (2018-2019) and was a member of the WEF’s Global Agenda Council on the International Monetary System (2010-2012). He served on committees of the Japanese Government’s Economic Deliberation Council, as an appointee of Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto (1997-98) and as an appointee of Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi (1998-1999), and was a member of the oversight board of the Japanese Government’s Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (2001-2006). From 2003 to 2010, he was a non-executive director of ORIX Corporation. In 2006, Sheard was recognized by Advance as one of a 100 Leading Global Australians. Sheard is on the board of the Foreign Policy Association and is a member of the Bretton Woods Committee, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Economic Club of New York. He speaks regularly at conferences around the world, and his views on the global economy and policy issues are frequently cited in the international press. Author or editor of four books and numerous academic articles, Sheard’s 1997 book in Japanese, Mein Banku Shihon Shugi no Kiki: Biggu Ban de Kawaru Nihongata Keiei (The Crisis of Main Bank Capitalism: How Japanese-style Management Will Change with “Big Bang”), won the Suntory-Gakugei Prize in the Economics–Politics Division. Sheard received a BA (Hons) from Monash University and a Master of Economics and PhD in Japanese Economy from the ANU.

Dr. Myriam Assa Sidibe: Myriam is one of the world’s leading experts of brands that drive health outcomes through mass behavioural change. From within Unilever, she has created a movement to change the handwashing behaviours of one billion people, the single biggest hygiene behavior change programme in the world, and conceived and established the multi awards winner UN recognized Global Handwashing Day – now celebrated in over 100 countries. Myriam’s approach to pushing boundaries and challenging the status quo has been pivotal to leading a paradigm shift in the way public private partnerships for health/well-being are managed and funded, leading her to be recognized as one of the top 10 Intrapreneurs in the world. Her foresight in establishing Lifebuoy’s social mission has resulted in being replicated across Unilever as best practice examples for brands looking to positively impact the world whilst driving market share. Over the past 20 years, she has worked in over 20 countries in Asia and Africa for the public sector and the private sector, arguing for a more transparent relationship between the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors, advocating the need for businesses to gain growth and profits from engagement in social and health issues in order to build more sustainable, effective interventions, and is a regular commentator in the media on this. Myriam regularly presents her work on WASH and Nutrition at key public health events (Scaling Up Nutrition Global network, Women Global Health Leaders). She is equally recognized in the creative world (speaker at Health Lions in Cannes) and is a Ted speaker The Simple Power of Handwashing - Ted Talk.Myriam is a trustee of WaterAid, the world’s largest civil society organization on Water and Sanitation and a commissioner for the Lancet on the future of health in Africa. Myriam is from Mali and holds a doctorate in Public Health from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a Masters in Water and Waste Engineering from Loughborough University, UK. She was trained as an Agricultural and Environmental Engineer from McGill University, Canada. Her research is on how brands that have public health ambitions can be better supported in order to enhance their impact in the world. Her faculty sponsor is Leemore Dafny, the Bruce V. Rauner Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.